


Of Sisters and Substitute Shinigami

by Darkfromday



Category: Bleach
Genre: Angst, Brother-Sister Relationships, F/M, Gen, Post-Soul Society Arc, Unreliable Narrator, Unrequited Love, also more 'relationships' and characters are mentioned, lots of friendly-friend-friends, the latter is only mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-14
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-06-02 06:45:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6555820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkfromday/pseuds/Darkfromday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rukia tries to ignore the fallout following her release, until her still-injured, slightly salty brother-in-law asks her just what's up with her and the guy who beat him so badly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Sisters and Substitute Shinigami

**Author's Note:**

> This story is five years old. A virtual cookie to anyone who can pinpoint the place in the story with the exact 4-year gap between when I started writing this diligently and when I hurriedly tried to finish it this month.

“ _Tsugi no Mai… Hakuren!_ ”

 

All the bushes in a long line on the right side of the garden froze—icicles gleamed in the sun, hanging off of even the most fragile leaves.

 

The sight made Kuchiki Rukia smile—if only for a moment. In the next, her smile faded as reality and responsibility set in.

 

“Oh no—nii-sama will kill me!”

 

Having finally remastered her zanpaku-tô’s second dance didn’t compare to the amount of trouble she would be in if half the Kuchiki garden didn’t melt. Her sister Hisana had helped her brother plant some of these bushes, not so very long ago. Since learning about her, Rukia usually did her best never to _mention_ Hisana, let alone interact with anything that had been hers. Practicing in the garden had merely been an act of desperation—she didn’t want to return to Thirteenth Company’s barracks. Not yet.

 

There wasn’t a moment to lose, and no time to panic. But if only she were better at Kido…!

 

“Rukia…?”

 

Rukia cringed. Speaking of brothers… _it sounds like mine is here. How will I explain this?_

 

She turned, sheathing Sode no Shirayuki.

 

Kuchiki Byakuya was standing tall at the entrance to the family gardens. For once, his dark hair was loose—he looked relaxed, and younger than he normally did, though with all Shinigami age was relative. Even so, he also seemed to be troubled by something.

 

“There you are,” he said quietly. His eyes passed over both her and the garden in one sweep, detecting nothing that warranted his concern.

 

That in itself troubled Rukia. “Nii-sama, I’m so sorry—I didn’t think about where I was practicing—”

 

Only then did Byakuya seem to notice that half the garden he and his wife had planted together was now a very short ice sculpture. And yet… but for uttering a small “Oh”, he did not seem as perturbed as she’d imagined. Or perhaps he was just quelling his emotions until later? She knew that he often did that, to keep from shouting at examples of incompetence or laughing outright at some mistake of his lieutenant Abarai Renji’s.

 

“It will melt, I am sure.”

 

“Yes, nii-sama.” Rukia nodded emphatically; he had no idea how much she was hoping for that very thing, shocked as she was by his lack of reaction to her oversight. “I’m sure it will.”

 

Byakuya sighed. There was a line forming in the middle of his forehead, a sure sign that something was indeed bothering him.

 

 _But what?_ Rukia wondered anxiously. She ran through the events of the past few days in her head: _Chad_ _, Ishida, Inoue, and Kurosaki—Ichigo—went home after resting here in Soul Society. Nii-sama was injured in their battle… but he’s fine now. The Third, Fifth and Ninth Companies aren’t doing so well with their captains gone, but—_

 

She snapped her fingers. _That’s it! It must be because Aizen-taichou, Ichimaru-taichou, and Tousen-taichou are gone. Being a captain is hard enough—but losing three supposedly trustworthy men, fellow captains, in the course of a few hours…_

 

“Rukia, we need to talk…”

 

She faltered, still stuck in her train of thought. _What do I say to him? Even with us being on better speaking terms now, and with him finally looking at me… how do I know what he wants?_

_I doubt he wants to be comforted. He doesn’t seem upset at losing them, only… disappointed._

 

“…about you and Kurosaki Ichigo.”

 

It was like being kicked in the face.

 

 _…Wait,_ what _?!_

 

ჯჯჯ

 

Byakuya sipped his cup of tea gingerly, trying not to wince as even the small movement triggered pain in his bandaged chest. Such an injury made not thinking of the substitute Shinigami impossible at this time—or so he’d told Rukia. She herself was reduced to spluttering at first; but it was obvious that he would not let her slide away from this conversation.

 

In fact, Rukia thought, it seemed like he’d been waiting to spring questions on her from the moment Ichigo had given her that cheeky wave and left Soul Society. She just hadn’t noticed her brother’s new preoccupation—or, rather, had willfully ignored it out of fear of what it meant. Now, though, seemed to be the time to find out everything.

 

“It was not appropriate to ask before, when I was fighting him—and I was just as unable after being injured by Ichimaru. Now, however, I may ask what I wish.”

 

“N-nii-sama?”

 

Byakuya fixed her with his pale gray gaze; it still unnerved her (the way he actually looked at her now), and would take some getting used to. “You honestly do not know what I am concerned about?”

 

Rukia took in a few quick breaths. “I… think you may be concerned about something that doesn’t exist.”

 

“Rukia, a Fourth Company girl comes in here every half hour on the dot to change my bandages, and each time they sorely need changing. I have not stopped bleeding since Kurosaki Ichigo vowed to battle me for your life. That is how dedicated he was to saving you. Putting my embarrassment about bandages aside… what is Kurosaki Ichigo to you? More importantly, what are _you_ to _him_?”

 

She blinked, then blushed as his words and their meaning set in. “We’re friends.”

 

Byakuya frowned, shook his head. “You are diverting me. You and Renji are friends—yet it took losing to that boy for Renji to ignore Central 46’s commands and turn against me and the order for your execution.”

 

She winced; it still stung to think that she had almost been killed, not so very long ago.

 

“When the Soul Society sent the order out for you to be retrieved, you had been away for two months. Renji was concerned, especially since you could not be traced—but not concerned enough to come after you before the order was issued.”

 

Rukia shook her own head. However much Byakuya saw, he could not possibly understand how helpless she had felt two months ago (more, over those many _years_ ), watching on the sidelines as her friendship with Renji had splintered apart, without quite knowing why. “It wouldn’t have made any sense if he _did_ come—it only would have blown the Soul Society’s cover more than I was already forced to. After being so gravely wounded and giving Ichigo my powers… I had to train him, nii-sama. Otherwise, my sacrifice would have gone to waste, and he and any other Wholes would have been Hollow food! Even when I first met him, Ichigo had so much raw power that he could see me, and he told me he’d been seeing Wholes for as long as he could remember. One of the Hollows…killed his mother.”

 

Byakuya bowed his head, studying her. If there was one thing he understood, it was sacrifice, and the pain that came with it.

 

She went on, trying to make him _see_ , to make him understand the explanation she had never before been allowed to give. “It was simple at first… as simple as giving your powers to a human could be, anyway. He was stubborn—I came to learn that that was just a character trait—but I convinced him to send wandering souls here. He did; there were Hollows that he easily defeated, and others that didn’t go down so easily. I made contact with Urahara Kisuke, remained hidden in Ichigo’s r—house when there wasn’t trouble… and I went to his school, to keep an eye on him and his friends.”

 

His eyebrows rose at the slip, but he did nothing more but ask, “And why was that necessary, Rukia? You know the rules—involvement with the Living is forbidden unless under special circumstances.”

 

“Interacting with Ichigo’s friends _became_ necessary. He himself had so much spiritual power that some of it… leaked, I suppose. His friends, who had shown very little spiritual pressure of their own before, drew from Ichigo’s vast reserves and had their own power awakened. That was when things truly became complicated—if Inoue and her friend Arisawa weren’t being attacked by Hollows, then Chad’s parakeet needed the human soul ejected out of it and Ichigo wasn’t around; or there was a new boy, Ishida Uryû, claiming to be the last living Quincy and using Hollow bait to unintentionally lure Menos Grandes… now _that_ was a horrible day.

  
“I can’t describe to you what it was like to be thrust into the middle of all of that, nii-sama. And it wasn’t at all like being here.” Rukia gestured to the area beyond the wall of the Kuchiki mansion, where the rest of Soul Society dwelt. “Having to pose as a high school girl…flirting and chatting with Ichigo’s acquaintances during the day, and then helping Ichigo slay a Hollow that night… just being in that world made me so aware of how like the Living I was… and how very unlike them. The only person who had even the slightest idea of what I truly was, of course, was Urahara-san—but he was his own mystery. All I knew was that it was becoming easier and easier to stay, to shrug off the fact that my power wasn’t returning, and to spend my time teaching Ichigo…”

 

She trailed off. Byakuya picked up from where he had previously left off.

 

“And do you know why it was easy, Rukia?”

 

She shook her head. _I don’t want to think._

 

His lips twitched in what could have been a smile, had he been anyone else. “It is simple—they became your friends. It is easy to remain around people you care about.”

 

Rukia blinked rapidly. Her eyes had stung for a brief moment, but luckily that moment had passed. In its place, however, came images of them all, and moments she had shared with them: _Chad_ _. Tatsuki. Keigo. Mizuiro. Chizuru. Uryû. Orihime. Then there’s Urahara and his brats, and Tessai. Even Kon, and…_

_Ichigo._

 

“I didn’t…” She sniffed, surprising herself and her brother. “I didn’t intend for it to happen.”

 

“I know.”

 

“I got close to them,” Rukia admitted, fingering her shihakusho and averting her gaze from her brother’s all-seeing eyes. “But _they_ probably came after me because of how abruptly I left them… you and Renji _did_ injure Ichigo and Uryû quite badly, and it wasn’t as if they had anything else to do.”

 

Byakuya let out an annoyed huff—the sound surprised her as much as the fact that he had made it, and that he now looked at her with what seemed to be exaggerated patience.

 

“You are not answering my question.”

 

“What? Nii-sama—”

 

“Did you not understand me? You and Renji have known one another for years—years longer than any one of those _ryoka_ have been living. Your time in the human world was hardly more than a second of your overall life—yet the moment you were taken from it, four human strangers followed you in order to get you back, and seemed hell-bent on doing so no matter what obstacles they might face. And one of them is a _Quincy_ of all things.

 

“They could have— _should_ have—gone back to their ordinary lives, laid low until the Soul Society deemed them nonthreatening. The _ryoka_ should have been separated, weaned of whatever power they had gained from proximity to you, until they forgot it and you both. That they did not do that is telling.

 

“The capacity of humans to care is not in dispute here, Rukia. I am disputing your ignorance of how much one _particular_ human cared enough about you to rally his human friends, harness a heinous amount of power, and cross into another realm, _for you_. You are not answering me—either because you do not want to or because you cannot, yet.”

 

Rukia blanched; her brother had hardly spoken this many words to her since he’d taken her in. Now, though, he seemed so determined to get his point across that he risked ruining his bandages and any progress he’d made in healing. And she still didn’t know— _didn’t want to know_ —what he was driving at.

 

So she tried to divert his attention, and defend one of her oldest friends in the same breath. “I told you, I got close to them… to him. Ichigo and I became friends. Short time or no, it’s hard not to bond with the person holding your powers and your secrets in his hands. That doesn’t mean that Renji was any less dedicated to saving me—”

 

“You do not even believe that,” Byakuya said mildly.

 

She almost sputtered— “Of course I—Renji had a _duty_ , he couldn’t openly defy you or the Soutaichou!”

 

But her brother only looked at her, and eventually the indignant blush faded from her face as she looked away. Admitted silently that _yes_ , in her deepest heart of hearts, it had hurt to see Renji grinning so casually at Byakuya’s side when they had come to retrieve her in the world of the Living. Had hurt when he’d barely visited her, had not breathed a word about defending her or protesting her execution.

 

Knowing that his stony mask had cracked once Ichigo had defeated his Bankai in battle did little to assuage her hurt at his lack of proactivity on her behalf in the first place. Even knowing that the Soul Society’s ever-watching eyes would have been all over Renji had he shown her any ounce of sympathy had no effect. Byakuya had had it right: Renji hadn’t defied Central 46 until Ichigo had beaten him into a new direction. There was no way of knowing if he _ever_ would have changed his mind on his own.

 

 _I thought we were friends no matter what_ , Rukia tried to say, but the words wouldn’t come out. She just saw that stupid, emotionless smile from that day in the rain in Ichigo’s world.

 

Being lost in her own thoughts (thoughts she hadn’t expected to get the chance to explore just a few days ago) meant that Rukia jumped when the Kuchiki head of household repeated his original, piercing question. “What is Kurosaki Ichigo to you, Rukia? What are you to him?”

 

“I’m not—he’s not—we’re _friends_.”

 

“ _Rukia_.”

 

The tone sent her close to bursting with frustration, annoyance, desperation. “What do you want me to _say_ , nii-sama? That he’s important to me? Of course Kurosaki—Ichigo’s important to me. You say we were only together for a while—but time is so, so different in the world of the Living. It felt like months that we woke up in the same space and walked to Ichigo’s school together, ate with his friends, took his tests, and fought Hollows.

 

“Not only did he save my life—he let me stay with his family and meet his friends. It was nothing like being here, where Renji was my only friend—until he wasn’t—and where I had to constantly prove that I earned my spot in the Thirteenth Division through work and not through—you.”

 

Byakuya didn’t flinch—but something in his eyes seemed to change at the words. Rukia would have regretted it—but she had spent so long keeping her thoughts and feelings to herself, not wanting to show an ounce of weakness for fear that the Kuchikis would reject her, and the rest of the Court Guard would rip her to shreds. Perhaps this too was Ichigo’s doing—he had always been one to speak bluntly, caring little for who was affected by his brashness.

 

It was something she’d come to like about him.

 

“So you see him as a friend?”

 

“ _Yes_.”

 

Her brother-in-law leaned forward, his hands still folded together, and pierced her again with his intense gray eyes. “I will be as clear as the _ryoka_ was when he left me and Renji with all these injuries. Kurosaki Ichigo saw you as more than a comrade needing rescue. You may see him as a friend, Rukia, but he sees you as something far beyond that. And after what has happened here…”

 

He gestured to the windows. Rukia followed his arm, her heart fluttering and sinking as she saw again the ruined streets left in her friends’ and Aizen’s wake. All because of her capture…

 

“…you are running out of time to feign ignorance.”

 

ჯჯჯ

 

After that it was hard to get any practice in.

 

Though it was comforting to have Sode no Shirayuki at her side again, to feel her powers humming within her, they were both drowned out by the storm of information she had long denied, that Byakuya had so forcefully brought forward.

 

Rukia spent the rest of that day drifting from place to place, halfheartedly checking in on comrades who’d been injured, lost in her own head, in reevaluating everything she thought she’d known about herself and Ichigo.

 

 _Nature only goes so far._ Byakuya’s voice echoed in her head again as she lay in bed, one hand clutching the hilt of her zanpaku-tô. _Even if it was in Kurosaki’s nature to take in strays, he would not have kept you around had he not grown to care for you. He did not simply miss you when you were gone; he took action to bring you back to his life. Kurosaki found new power and used it on your behalf—does that not give you pause? If it does not, it should._

 

 _Of_ course _it gives me pause_ , Rukia thought. It was the first time she’d ever had any kind of relationship with the Living in her memory, particularly one like this. It was hard enough analyzing her friendship with the smartass strawberry—if he had feelings for her beyond friendship, they were both screwed.

 

Rukia took a deep breath. Unclenched from her death grip on the sheets. Refocused on what she knew and what she could control.

 

Kurosaki Ichigo had feelings for her. They had propelled him (and perhaps Orihime, Uryû and Chad) to come to her rescue, and they were so apparent that even Byakuya could see them.

 

She couldn’t return his feelings. That was a fact. She was much too old for him (by at least _a hundred years_ , for pity’s sake!), and she was Shinigami. For all intents and purposes, they were the dead and the alive; his status as a Whole meant there was no way they could use romance as a bridge between the separate worlds they had to inhabit. Even Ichigo’s previous status as a substitute Shinigami was always meant to be temporary. _Even with Ichigo…. Nothing permanent could be built on anything that temporary._

 

And even if Ichigo became Shinigami tomorrow, she and Soul Society had bigger problems to deal with than a mouthy ghost-sighting strawberry. Aizen’s betrayal had everyone on high alert, searching for more traitors, getting in all the training they could before the inevitable war began. All was fair in love and war usually because those two concepts existed very, very separately from one another.

 

It was possible that the others hadn’t known about that part of Ichigo’s motivations when they followed him into the Soul Society. That meant less awkward conversations for Rukia with the others… so perhaps she could keep them as friends, convince the Soul Society to keep letting them live.

 

 _And in the meantime_ … Rukia knew that Orihime had feelings for Ichigo—as did anyone who wasn’t the moron himself. He also had a close bond with Tatsuki—perhaps if Rukia took herself out of the picture, he’d put Shinigami and Hollows out of his head and find some sweet girl to spend his kindness on like a normal teenager.

 

Byakuya was still being uncharacteristically kind. Wishing her a good night was one thing; actively keeping his mouth shut about Ichigo’s subtle display of affection around the other captains was enough to give her a headache. After all the time she’d spent squirming in her brother’s shadow, she didn’t know how to be around him naturally, or respond to anything that wasn’t disappointment. And it didn’t help that Byakuya seemed to ascribe Ichigo’s crusade solely to romantic attachment—as though she wouldn’t be worth saving if he just thought it was cool to chase Hollows with her.

 

A sigh escaped her.

 

 _Humans. **Kurosaki.**_ _Always complicating everything._ She’d started to think of him as a new friend, a close one, someone to start to fill the hole Renji’s distance had bored into her soul. But if he wanted something else, it would be even harder. She’d have to let him down gently—and then end their friendship. It would be better for them both if they parted now, with her still existing and him still alive.

 

 _Better_ , but—

 

Something made Rukia start and open her fingers—her grip on the handle of Sode no Shirayuki had gone just beyond too tight, and now there was a painful red ring of cold around her hand.

 

 _Not good enough_ , she finished, looking at it. She picked up her zanpaku-tô and set it by her head, close enough to grab at a moment’s notice, realizing that she wasn’t sure (who or what) exactly what she meant by that. Got back in bed, and sank back under her thin sheets.

 

Maybe she could just push him away instead. Keep away from all of them, so they wouldn’t be targeted. They could still be friends—but they couldn’t be around one another too much either.

 

…because _that_ would work when they’d already crossed dimensions to assure her safety.

_The worst part about this will be saying goodbye._

_And I should be used to that by now when all I’ve done is leave things, but… I’m not. I hardly ever had a choice. I left the orphanage, I left Renji, then I left Soul Society by accident—only to end up almost leaving existence because of it._

_One of the few times I ever got to choose was when I said ‘hello’ to Ichigo, and Orihime, and Ishida and Chad. Leaving them—surrendering myself to nii-sama—was the right thing to do. Even though it hurt._

_Now there’s a war and I have to really say good-bye to my friends and to that strawberry idiot. And I thought I was ready… I thought I was used to saying good-bye to friends…_

 

She punched the mattress next to her, sending pain through her body. Ichigo was different. He always had been; it was why a bond had grown between them. And now this _crush_ or whatever was going to make severing ties with him impossible.

 

_Damn you, Kurosaki Ichigo. Why didn’t you leave me to die? I have to train for the fight of my life, and all I can think about is you. How to push you away. How to cut you out without completely burning the bridge. You had to start having feelings, didn’t you…? Had to make everything more complicated, the way you always do._

_Just, damn you. If you’re the one with the feelings, why can’t I sleep?_


End file.
